Performing the Complete Breath to calm your mind and rid yourself of your worries and frustrations in everyday life.

Performing the Complete Breath with the goal of calming your mind and eliminating your worries and the frustrations you find in everyday life.

Because mind and breathing are intertwined you must learn proper breathing techniques to clear and free your mind.When doing Complete Breathing pay attention to your lungs expanding from stomach to shoulders and then the calmness from the slow exhale. The exercise should never be undertaken too hastily. Rather than taking ten hurried breathes, it is much better to take two controlled and correct ones. In Yoga exercises it is always quality and not quantity that counts.

If performed nightly before bed, this exercise promotes restful and refreshing sleep which will greatly benefit individuals who are very tense. When you are able to perform it correctly do try to practise it whenever you can during the day but particularly when you feel tired, depressed or upset. You can even take a few deep breaths as you take that morning walk up to the bus stop or the train, in which case you can match your breathing to your footsteps, say breathe in for six and exhale for six. If you are lucky enough to be anywhere near the sea draw in that wonderful, sweet-smelling air for all you are worth.
Maybe some people are just naturally tense. False. Some are tense by habit and they subconsciously let them build until surprise:boom! a beautiful, full-blown peptic ulcer, a chronic heart condition or worse. The breaking up of tension is going to be, for most people, the breaking of the habit of a lifetime. I have been told in all seriousness many times, 'But, Miss Richmond, I must build up tension while I am working otherwise . . .' Otherwise what can one do? Additionally, I would say, you would otherwise have so much more energy that you wouldn't know what to do with it, so you feel you have to squander a little by becoming tense!

Let us consider this problem in its proper perspective.
No one, repeat, no one ever got the best out of themselves by means of tension. You may think that you need it, that you could not do without it, but still you wonder sometimes why you cannot sleep, why your nerves are often 'torn to shreds', and you suffer from fears you cannot identify. Can you imagine what it would be like to be free forever of these distressing symptoms, to feel relaxed and cheerful and full of energy?

The way to accomplish this exists within Yoga; however, be mindful of the cost. You will have to part with those precious tensions of yours.
My intention in this story is to show you the way to better health through Yoga and not to moralize in any way, but may I tell you just one story which I hope might stick in your mind for the rest of your life? Those readers who maintain that they are unable to live without a burden of tension on their shoulders should find it especially useful.
There was once a wise old man who was sitting at the window of his house when he saw, down in the street below, a poor beggar carrying a heavy load on his back. 'What is that you carry?' calledthe old man. The beggar looked up at the window and then opened up the large sack he was carrying. There was a bunch of junk inside.

'It's nothing but a lot of rubbish' the old man protested,and asked,why do you burden yourself with it?The beggars answer was he had to, he had nothing else.